Состоялся релиз Golaem 9

First introduced in 2011, Golaem was developed to provide an intuitive approach to crowd animation, enabling users to utilize Maya's built-in tools to control their behavior. Additionally, Golaem includes toolsets for creating custom artificial intelligence logic, automatically generating variations of crowd characters, and interactive previewing and editing of simulations.

Output data is compatible with Arnold, Guerilla Render, Redshift, RenderMan, and V-Ray, allowing users to export data to other DCC tools for rendering, including 3ds Max, Houdini, and UE5. The software has been used in production by VFX studios such as Method Studios, Blur Studio, Rodeo FX, and Mikros Animation.

Golaem 9 has received an update to its animation engine, removing some of the previous limitations on the types of characters that can be used in crowd simulations. Specifically, Golaem now directly supports modular rigs without relying on secondary skeleton mapping, marking this as the first instance in a commercial crowd simulation tool. The new engine supports nine degrees of freedom (9-DoF), allowing animation control across three coordinate axes for translations, rotations, and scaling. Additionally, there is now the ability to use motion capture data directly as motion clips within Golaem Behaviors, enabling animators to apply animations directly to crowd characters.

The update also introduces a new experimental module: ML Deformer, which allows using machine learning methods to create more accurate crowd animations. Golaem describes it as similar to the ML Deformer framework from Unreal Engine, enabling simplification of deformations generated by high-performance rigs for characters and applying them to characters with less complex rigs during rendering. The package includes a training tool that can encode any deformations created on a Maya rig, including those made with custom plugins.

Golaem 9 also introduces significant new workflows, including the ability to create frames entirely without simulation and refine existing models without disrupting the overall process. The new CreateEntity layer allows users to create entire frames using the Layout tool, where users generate characters directly during layout, ready for quantitative scaling using Duplicate or SnapTo layers, and animation using the PlayMotion layer.
This workflow can also be used to edit existing animations, including adding additional characters to frames or animating selected characters. The new Crowd Levels paradigm allows users to gradually create frames. Within this new workflow, artists can create overall movement of crowd characters and then add additional passes for cloth simulation or secondary animation. This allows editing animations without disrupting the workflow, updating existing simulations based on client or supervisor feedback.

Among other new features, Golaem 9 introduces a new TrackLocator node that moves characters between two animated curves, providing greater control over the overall shape of the crowd. The Level of Detail (LOD) system has also been expanded: now LOD levels can include different numbers of meshes and meshes with different names. The Golaem blog dedicated to Golaem 9 also describes some features added later in the updates of Golaem 8.x, including a new procedural foot locking system.

The new mode available in the AdaptGround Behavior is designed to automatically reduce foot slipping for crowd characters, without the need to edit input motions manually. Additionally, there is now the ability to create custom display shapes for proxy characters based on each character, providing greater control over how they appear in previews. The Channel Operators (ChOp) system in Golaem, which is based on nodes for creating custom crowd behaviors, has received new nodes including GeometryInput, Memory, Ramp, and Counter.

Golaem 9.0.2 is compatible with Maya 2020 and higher. A perpetual license for the full version of the software costs 7,000 euros. Golaem Lite, which is a stripped-down version primarily for layout, formerly known as Golaem Layout, costs 1,800 euros. Rental prices are 650 euros per month or 4,000 euros per year for Golaem, and 160 euros per month or 1,000 euros per year for Golaem Lite.